Monday Meanderings - 10.24.2016

Now that's more like it! The blanket is back on the bed. Of course, this is Texas, so it's likely that it may come and go a couple of times.

Went for a MRI the other day, and there is this long, long list of things that you have to check off because they present a problem for the process, since anything metal in your body will not react well when surrounded by huge, powerful magnets. Among the items on the check list is "Tattoos." Interestingly, the technician who prepped me for the procedure had a full-sleeve, brightly-colored tattoo, so I commented, "No MRI for you, huh?" Might have been a touchy subject for her - all she said was, "Nope."

At breakfast the other morning, it took me a while to figure out that this young lady wasn't horribly obese - or deformed.

My current book at the Learning Ally studio covers a little-known aspect of WWII - German submarines operating in the Gulf of Mexico. The highly successful U-boat campaigns in the North Atlantic were widely reported, but the US kept a tight lid on the fact that a couple of subs in the Gulf sank more than 2 dozen tankers and freighters over the course of several months. According to the War Diaries of the 2 commanders, they even ventured into the mouth of the Mississippi.

The book recounts the true story of a family that was aboard a Standard Fruit cargo vessel when torpedoed about 25 miles off the coast of Louisiana as the family was returning from Cost Rico (the father was a Standard Fruit employee). The family of 4 survived and were rescued.

Later, the 10-year old boy in the family received a failing grade on a report he wrote in class about his experiences. The teacher had assigned the subject of "how the war had affected them personally" and refused to believe that Sonny and his family had survived a U-boat attack in the Gulf of Mexico!